Resolution
by justcrazy
Summary: Josh & Donna have got to figure this out! Set two weeks after The Ticket.
1. Chapter 1

He bowed his head against the door, and though the tension in his body eased just a little, the ache in his heart did not. It had been two weeks since Donna had come to him, looking for a place in the Santos campaign, asking to be his deputy. Turning her down had made sense, he knew, but he also knew that he'd hurt her. The look on her face when she'd realized he was saying no had nearly killed him, and after two weeks that felt like slowly dying, he had come to try and make amends. It had taken him five turns around the block, two trips up and down the stairs outside the building, and three minutes of pacing at the end of the hallway to finally bring himself to her door and knock. And she wasn't home. He closed his eyes, leaned into the door, and sighed. What to do now? Go home and get drunk, camp out in the lobby, curl up on her doormat like a lost puppy –

"Josh?"

His head snapped up, and he whirled around to see Donna standing a few feet away, staring at him. His heart stopped beating and his mind raced, trying to read her expression – was she glad to see him? Pissed? Upset? _Beautiful._ Looking at her, his mind slowly forms the word, and for some reason it allowed him to breathe again. Smiling nervously, he offered a shaky "hi."

"Hi." Her expression, he decided, was primarily perplexed. "What are you doing here?"

"I – I came to see you." Smooth, debonair.

"I gathered that." Her voice was calm, but not cold, and he relaxed a little.

"I couldn't leave things. . .the way we left them. I had to see you, had to explain – "

"You don't have to explain, Josh. I thought about it after I left and realized I was stupid to go to you in the first place."

Now he was perplexed. He'd expected coolness, or anger, or hurt – but not this calmness in her voice, not her light words. "You weren't stupid. I –" Stopping short, he looks around. "Can I come in?"

Her eyes hold his for a second – so steadily! so calmly! - then she wordlessly steps around him and opens the door. They walk to the living room in silence and then, putting down her things, she asks if he'd like something to drink. As if this were something they did on a regular basis, as if nothing were out of the ordinary.

"No, thanks." He watches her shrug off her sweater, then collapses heavily onto a chair across from the sofa where she sits with one leg tucked under. Suddenly, he is almost overwhelmingly tired. He had come expecting a battle – well, at least a heated argument, some pleading – and instead she seemed already to have forgotten the pain of their last encounter.

"You were saying. . ." she prompts him.

Looking up, he tries again to read her expression – nothing. "I don't know what I was saying."


	2. Chapter 2

"Something about me not being stupid, I think it was."

Finally! There it was – the slightest trace of bitterness in her voice. He felt oddly elated for a moment before his nerves surged again, and he was up on his feet, pacing before her. Their "interview" had played itself over and over in his mind since the moment he had watched her walk away. Now, he was determined to say everything he hadn't then. "Donna, you have to know that I _know_ how good you are. It didn't surprise me, that you did so well for Russell. It surprised me that you would _want _to do so well for Russell, but hey –"

"OK, do we really have to do this again? I picked the wrong guy, you won, I _get_ it."

"Donna, you came to _me_ –"

"Yes!" she says, her voice rising, "And I already told you that I realized it was a mistake!"

"And I'm trying to tell you that I'm sorry!"

He stops, flushed, exasperated – and terrified, because he knows where this is going. He stops pacing, and crouching down before her, says quietly, "Donna, I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I couldn't hire you on two weeks ago. I'm sorry I didn't steal you back from Russell at the very beginning. I'm sorry I did whatever I did to make you leave in the first place."

Suddenly, she stands and walks away from him, and he is shocked by the change in her face when she spins around. "God, how do you do it? _Every time!_ Every time I think I know where we stand – where I stand – you pull the rug out from under me. Do you know that it never once occurred to me, in all the time that we'd worked together, that being your assistant was a dead end for me until CJ spelled it out? And then, when I finally get up the courage to quit, you won't listen! You won't give me even a _lunch_ to explain, to thank you, to - After everything, Josh! After Gaza. After Germany. Why did you come? I thought it would change everything, and it changed nothing! Nothing! How could that not change anything for you? Why are you here? _What _do you _want_ from me!"

He is standing again, watching her from across the room as if in a daze. He's stunned, everything suddenly gone out of focus. He had _thought _he'd known where this was going. He'd had no idea.


	3. Chapter 3

For Donna, standing amazed at herself, everything had come sharply_ in_ to focus. Shadows cast by the trees outside played along the floor, and their edges seemed precisely defined against the light. The elevator door opened down the hall, and she heard footsteps and a woman laughing. The silence in the room buzzed in her ears; the air was electric. Josh is looking at her, and she can see a thousand things flashing in his eyes.

How had it come to this so quickly? She'd been surprised by the sense of calm that descended when she saw him waiting at her door. Instead of panic, she'd felt – hardly anything. Numb. As she led him into her apartment, it was as though she were observing the scene from a distance, impressed by the steadiness of her voice and hands. And then, as she sat listening to his apologies – not the words he was saying, but the tenderness underneath them – the dam had broken.

Now she feels both terrified and free. The words that had come rushing to her lips had formed in her heart so long ago that the weight of them, unspoken, had become familiar. Now that she has finally said them aloud, she is aware of a strange lightness in her chest. It causes her not to realize, at first, that she's trembling, but once she does, she prays he can't see.


	4. Chapter 4

Of course, he does. Through the haze he's standing in, it somehow registers that she is as scared as he is, and it's that which anchors his feet to the floor and keeps him from turning around and running out the door. He had gone cold when she'd said "Gaza," and as her words crashed into him from across the room, his instinct had been to somehow escape.

But as his vision clears and he sees that she is afraid, too, a courage he doesn't recognize wells up in his veins. "So this is it then."

"Yeah," she breathes.

He takes one step forward. "You have to know that – you terrify me." He hears his own voice as if it were miles away, but the reaction on her face is immediate. Her words are like a plea,

"_Why_, Josh?"

His heart is hammering in his chest, but he knows that there isn't any turning back now. Taking one more step towards her, he's in free-fall. "Because I _need_ you. Because without you - - - I can't breathe. Because I've wanted you from the moment I laid eyes on you."

A tear spills over her eyes. "Josh. . ."

He is standing in front of her now, his own hand trembling as he lifts it to her face, wiping away the tear with his thumb. His voice is a whisper. "I love you, Donna – I have, for all this time."

She is trying in vain to stop her tears as the most beautiful smile he has ever seen slowly breaks over her face. "Josh, I -"

But her smile was his answer, and he can't wait any more. In a second, one hand is against the small of her back, pressing her body against his, and the other tangles in her hair as his mouth closes over hers. Their lips meet with equal passion, and in the heat of their first kiss, eight years' worth of longing, fear, and denial goes up in flames.


End file.
